


The Very Thought of You

by what_alchemy



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 1930s, First Time, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Pre-Canon, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, characters are older teens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 14:32:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18500947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/what_alchemy/pseuds/what_alchemy
Summary: Bucky's got a date with the prettiest girl in Brooklyn. If only he could stop wishing she were someone else.





	The Very Thought of You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eremji (handsfullofdust)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/handsfullofdust/gifts).



> To Eremji: I hope you enjoy this. I certainly enjoyed writing it. 
> 
> Though originally written and recorded by Al Bowlly in 1934, my favorite version of [The Very Thought of You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcRQiNHrsoQ) was recorded by Nat King Cole in 1958. Can't go wrong with [Billie's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yakzL1Q88c) 1938 version, either. I like to imagine these two slow dancing to that one on the radio, before everything.

All the guys in Brooklyn Heights agreed: Emmeline Masterson was the prettiest girl around. Everyone wanted a date with her, but she was pretty picky—and who could blame her, with the likes of Razz Collins, who smelled like the river, and Mikey Tompkins, who didn’t know how to do anything but yell at a dame, hanging around asking for kisses? So when Bucky screwed up his courage and his swagger and asked her to a dance real nice, with a flower and everything, he was sure he was gonna get turned down. To his surprise, she blinked her big brown eyes up at him and said, “Bucky Barnes, it would be my pleasure.” Bucky coulda been knocked over with a brush of her very long eyelashes, and he had to admit he hadn’t really planned this far ahead.

“Uh,” he said, and Emmeline Masterson just laughed. She set the petals of the flower against her nose and made Bambi eyes at him.

“Pick me up at 8 on the dot, sailor,” she said. “And dress nice.” She flounced away with a flip of her hair and her skirt, and when she was about to disappear around the corner, she waved at him. Still shell shocked, he managed to raise a hand automatically. She grinned at him, bright teeth in a slice of red smile, and then she was gone. Bucky shoved his fists into his pockets and rocked up on his toes. 

There was only one thing for it. He had to tell Steve.

 

 

Bucky had a restaurant job on the weekends, bussing tables and washing dishes and hauling stuff, but every day after school, Steve worked at the newsstand closest to their building. Bucky didn’t want to think about what that would mean in the winter time, but that was months off and Steve had been in pretty good shape since his last spell, back in early spring. Bucky couldn’t keep himself from worrying, but he decided he could put it off ’til there was something to worry about.

As usual, there was no one at the newsstand except Steve, and he was hunched over a notepad, scribbling with a nub of lead. He would be a famous artist someday, Bucky just knew it. 

“Hey, punk,” Bucky said, and Steve jumped about sky high. Bucky laughed at him. “It’s just me, geez.”

“You scared me,” Steve said.

“Sorry.” Bucky made a show of perusing the selection on the newsstand and rifling through some comics. “So, I got a date with Emmeline Masterson tonight,” he said. “Obviously, she has fancy and discerning tastes.”

Steve snorted and swiped at his face. It left a smudge of gray across one cheek. Bucky knew he should tell him, but the sight of it made something inside Bucky’s chest swell, so he didn’t bother.

“Some dames just like mooks,” Steve said. “It’s pretty tragic, actually.” 

Bucky grinned at him and waved a flimsy comic in his direction. 

“Better find one of ’em so you can take her to the dance, too,” he said. 

Steve’s face pinched and he bent over his notepad again, nose practically grazing the paper. 

“I don’t wanna go,” he said. “Besides, don’t you wanna be alone with Emmeline Masterson without the likes of me hanging around?”

“Well, yeah,” Bucky said, but that wasn’t strictly true. Steve was his best pal. Everything a guy could do was funner with his best pal around, even taking the prettiest girl in Brooklyn to a dance. He set the comic back in its place. “But it’d be better if you were there.”

Steve’s brows knitted into a delicate little thundercloud.

“Why, so you can rub my face in it? No, thanks.”

Bucky’s whole skin jumped, and his eyebrows, too. He rocked back on his heels.

“Hey, no,” he said, suddenly unsure of his footing. “Is that what you think?”

“S’what it feels like,” Steve mumbled, scratching furiously into his notepad. 

“That’s not what… I just like you around, is all. Things are better that way.”

Steve stilled his hand and looked up again, frowning.

“Can’t imagine your dates like it as much,” he said. 

“That’s why we get you one too, ya lunkhead.”

Steve sighed, eyes dropping back to his drawing.

“I’m gonna sit this one out, Buck,” he said. “But you have fun and all. Try to be a gentleman.”

“As if I’m ever anything less,” Bucky said. Steve just snorted and shook his head, tucking his chin into his chest. Impulsively, Bucky reached up into the newsstand and took a swipe at the streak on Steve’s cheekbone. Steve startled, wide blue eyes snapping to Bucky’s, but after a moment he relaxed into the touch. “Got some pencil on you,” Bucky murmured. He passed his thumb over the smooth skin of Steve’s face, but it did nothing at all for the stripe of soot. He snatched his hand back and shoved it into his pocket, casting his eyes down the street.

“Thanks,” Steve said. Bucky just shrugged.

“Yeah well, can’t have you goin’ around lookin’ like a hobo,” he said. When his voice came out gruff, he cleared his throat. “I better go get ready, I guess.” He glanced up again. Steve rolled his eyes, but his mouth curved upward. His mouth looked full and soft, like a dame’s. Bucky tore his eyes away.

“Yeah, it’ll take you three whole hours to put pomade in your hair just right and then practice your bedroom eyes in the mirror.”

Bucky plastered on his cockiest grin and hooked his thumbs in his suspenders, bouncing up on his toes. “Gotta put my best foot forward,” he said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve said, waving a hand. “Get outta here, Casanova.”

Bucky left the newsstand with a wink and a sloppy salute. He hoped his ma had time to press his nicest suit.

 

 

It wasn’t that the dance wasn’t fun. Bucky was definitely having fun. Might as well stick “dance” under “fun” in the dictionary. It was just that halfway through the evening, that Benny Goodman song came on, the one he and Steve had been listening to on the radio last week when they were cracking up about something or other, and for some reason, the song only made them laugh harder, so hard tears leaked from their eyes, so hard Steve was gasping for breath by the end. So that song came on and Bucky started to laugh, but Emmeline Masterson only looked annoyed and said, “What’s so funny ’bout my dancin’, ya bonehead?”

“Nothin’, Emmeline, nothin’. Honest. You dance real nice.” 

And that was true. Emmeline was a perfectly nice dancer, and a perfectly nice girl, and he _wanted_ to like being out with her tonight. It was just that she kept demanding he get her more punch when she hadn’t finished her last one, and nothing was stopping her from getting her own. And when she pulled his head down during the last slow number, she’d mashed their lips together and stuck her whole tongue in his mouth without really opening her own, and Bucky had choked and sputtered and apologized when she looked annoyed again. And, if he were honest with himself, she just wasn’t as pretty up close as she was from a distance. Her hair could stand to be shorter and lighter, and her eyes were too dark, and he had a fondness for freckles, which she lacked completely. With her heels on, she was a little too tall—he liked a girl who could fit against his chest and lay her head comfortably on his shoulder, and maybe was a bit cheeky, but not so mean. 

As the dance wound down, she went in for another kiss, equally odd, and Bucky ended up grunting into her mouth and having to pull away.

“What’s your problem?” she demanded, wiping her mouth. “Betsy Whitfield said you were a good kisser, so what’s wrong with you? Don’t you like kissing me?”

“No, I do,” Bucky said. “You’re the swellest dame in Brooklyn Heights.”

Emmeline Masterson put her hands on her hips and pursed her lips. Her lipstick had faded some, and Bucky wondered if it was all over him. He had to force himself not to scrub at his face. Her kisses felt more like full frontal assaults than kisses, but maybe that’s how some girls liked it. Maybe he _was_ a bad kisser. He’d never got further than feeling Betsy Whitfield up (her breasts were a little too big for his tastes) and fingering Jane Ormsby in their building’s supply closet (her voice was a little too high for his tastes). Maybe his kissing was the problem. Girls went on first dates with him, but never second ones.

“Yes, well,” Emmeline said, some of the ire deflated from her voice. “You’re the cutest fella in Brooklyn Heights. All the girls think so.”

“Really?”

Emmeline shrugged and looked away. 

“Sure,” she said. He smiled at her and offered his arm. She smiled too, and he liked that, her smile. Maybe a second date wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe one where they didn’t have to talk, and he could try kissing her way.

As he walked her home—slowly, because her heels had started to pinch her feet—he asked her for a second date.

“Maybe we can see the latest picture,” he said. “I heard the Count of Monte Cristo is supposed to be good.”

“I think I’d rather see Anne of Green Gables,” said Emmeline Masterson. “Have you ever read the books?”

“Not much of a book reader,” Bucky said. He didn’t know what Anne of Green Gables even was. 

“Oh, they’re just wonderful!” she said. “I read them when I was ten, but I think they’re still good even though I’m older now. You can borrow one, if you want.”

“I’d like that,” Bucky said, which was a lie, but it was the kind of lie you tell to spare someone’s feelings, so he thought even Steve couldn’t disapprove.

At the Mastersons’ door, Emmeline darted inside to grab the book for him, and then she swooped in for another kiss before pressing the book into his hands. The kiss was just as disconcerting as its predecessors, but Bucky managed a smile and a flirty goodbye, and she didn’t even look put out this time. 

He walked back to Steve’s building, throwing the book up into the air with a spin and catching it, over and over.

 

 

Steve’s ma had a bad cough, and it was worse in the mornings, so she’d taken to working strictly third shift. It wasn’t ideal, but Sarah Rogers always did what had to be done, and she didn’t complain about it. Bucky thought Mrs. Rogers was just about the best mom he’d ever met, and maybe even his ideal woman, though he’d never tell Steve that. There were some things you just didn’t tell your best pal about his ma. He didn’t have dirty feelings about her or anything, he just thought in a vague sense that someday he’d get married, and it would be to someone like her. Caring, and competent, and pretty in a delicate way, but with a spine of steel. Mrs. Rogers was soft and kind, but she didn’t take no guff. Bucky admired that. 

So, even though it was almost 10 o’clock on a Friday night, Steve was home alone when Bucky got to his apartment and let himself in. He found Steve drawing at the drafting table Mrs. Rogers had saved up for months to get him for his birthday. Bucky knocked on the wall to his bedroom, just to make sure he didn’t scare him again.

Steve craned around to look at him, smiling, and Bucky felt relieved, somehow. As if the entire disaster of a night was all right, as long as at the end of it, he could be with Steve and Steve would look at him just like that.

“You’re back early,” Steve said. “I figured you’d dance the night away.”

Bucky shrugged and came into Steve’s room, only to throw himself across the narrow single mattress on the floor and drop the book to the side. He let out a big sigh, and Steve’s smile turned wry.

“That hard, huh?” Steve said. “Having beautiful girls hang all over you? Must be tough.”

“Aw hell,” Bucky said. “It _was_. I could never tell what she wanted, and then her kissing—Jesus, Stevie.”

“What did I say about being a gentleman?” Steve said.

“No, but honestly. No static. We need to discuss technique here, because something’s gotta give, and I got the sneaking suspicion it ain’t gonna be her.”

Steve snorted and turned completely around on his stool, hands on his knees. He looked down at Bucky with an expression that was kind of amused, kind of exasperated, but finding Bucky funny was winning out, Bucky could tell.

“You, Bucky Barnes, are coming to me, Steve Rogers, for kissing technique? Stop the presses. Alert the authorities.”

Bucky whipped a pillow at him and he caught it, only to fly at him with it, smacking him across his body. He caught Steve across the stomach and they rolled into the wall, laughing. Steve got Bucky across the head, but Bucky dug his fingers into Steve’s ribs right where it made him squeal like a stuck pig.

“Uncle!” he cried. “You big lunkhead, uncle!”

“I win,” Bucky said, and he let him go. Steve slumped, still laughing, into Bucky’s side. Bucky got his arm around Steve’s neck like a headlock, but he just let it lie there, gentle, and when his own breath caught, he turned his head to stare up at the ceiling.

“Do you think I kiss bad?” Bucky said when Steve’s breath evened out.

“How would I know, jerk?”

“You seen me. At least with Betsy Whitfield.”

“Everyone’s seen you with Betsy Whitfield, Buck.”

“Yeah, well. She said I’m a good kisser.”

“So what do you need to hear from me about it for?”

Bucky shrugged, and it jostled Steve on his shoulder, but he didn’t seem bothered by it. 

“Emmeline Masterson says otherwise,” Bucky said. “And she would know wouldn’t she?” Steve huffed against his skin, and Bucky felt himself get goose bumps all over.

“Why, because she’s such a looker?” Steve shook his head. “Ever gotten any complaints before her?”

“Well, no, but—”

“But nothin’,” Steve said. “She’s full of herself, anyway.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah,” Steve said.

“I got a second date with her.”

“You like kissing her then?”

Bucky snorted and shook his head.

“Hell no,” he said. “But she’s _Emmeline Masterson,_ you know?”

Steve sighed and rolled onto his back. Bucky shivered at the loss of heat.

“Yeah, I know,” Steve said. “Everyone makes it impossible to forget.”

“Hey.” Bucky propped himself up on an elbow to look down into Steve’s face. He looked unhappy, and swiped at a lock of hair in his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Just don’t see what the big deal about Emmeline Masterson is,” Steve said. “She’s not very nice.”

“She mean to you?” Bucky demanded. “She say something to you, Steve, because I swear—”

“No, no, calm down.” Steve smacked him lightly with the back of his hand. “Nothing like that. She just thinks a lot of herself, you know? And people like that tend to forget other people deserve to be treated with respect.”

“Oh. You want me to call off the date?”

“No, don’t be a dope,” Steve said. “If you like her, you should take her out. But you don’t seem to like her, Buck, if you’re in here asking me about kissing instead of, you know, actually kissing her.”

Bucky grunted and lay back down. Steve’s ceiling had damp spots, and a saggy sort of bubble in one corner. Bucky knew all about Steve’s ceiling.

“How many girls you kissed?” he asked.

“Oh, Lord.”

“Come on, Steve. I always tell you.”

“Yeah, and it ain’t right, kissin’ and tellin’ like that.”

“Please, Steve. This is an emergency.”

“Doesn’t look like an emergency.”

Bucky rolled over and half-pinned Steve with his weight, and then gave him the imploring eyes that always worked on Mrs. Rogers.

“It _is_ ,” he said, soft.

Steve’s Adam’s apple bounced and Bucky could see him wavering. Then he sighed and looked away.

“Just the one,” Steve said. “Mary Margaret McBride. But you knew that, Bucky. Why you always gotta press?”

“But that was a dare from her friends,” Bucky blurted. It was a long time ago, when Steve wasn’t yet fifteen, and Mary Margaret had swept in and planted one on him without even asking. Afterward, she and her friends had run away laughing. 

“I know,” Steve bit out, and Bucky swallowed. Something hot and slimy felt like it was taking him over from the inside. He _hated_ Mary Margaret McBride.

“Hey,” Bucky said, reaching over to jostle Steve’s shoulder. “Look at me.” Steve met his eyes as if he had to force himself, and he looked angry and mortified. “She didn’t know what she was missing. And if Emmeline Masterson _really_ had fancy, discerning tastes, I’m not the one in this room who’d’a had her on his arm tonight.”

“Too bad there aren’t any dames like you out there,” Steve said. “I’d be set.”

“Ha, ugliest dames in New York.”

“I’d treat ’em like queens.”

The two of them dissolved into laughter and shoved each other around on the bed. It ended with Bucky’s face mashed into Steve’s shoulder blade as he caught his breath.

“Steve, Emmeline Masterson is a goddamn travesty of a kisser,” he said, and Steve started up laughing again. He sounded almost delirious with it. 

“Guess you’ll just have to show her how it’s done then,” he said, gasping.

“She won’t let me! She acts like I’m the one who’s got it wrong. What do I do?”

“I dunno, Buck. Just tell her you don’t like it that way.”

“Psh.”

“Well, why not? I mean, if it were me, I’d like to know if I was doin’ it wrong so I wouldn’t go around embarrassing myself all the time.” 

And then, as if his mind took complete leave of his body, Bucky ducked in and laid a kiss right on Steve’s lush pink mouth. Just a quick press, softness and warmth, and he was gone again, on his back looking up at the ceiling, heart racing. His blood was thundering in his ears, and in his peripheral vision he saw Steve pop up beside him. Bucky closed his eyes. He didn’t need them to see what was in Steve’s expression: surprise and horror, all wrapped up in a little frown that pinched his whole face.

“Buck?”

“What.” He opened his eyes, but kept them trained on the ceiling. 

“What was that?”

“Aw hell, I don’t know,” Bucky said, suddenly ornery. He crossed his arms over his chest and hitched his shoulders up. “So you don’t embarrass yourself next time a dame comes along worth your while.”

“Hmph.” Steve flopped down next to him again, and Bucky cracked open an eye to peer at him. His mouth was glistening, and Bucky’s stomach clenched. “Don’t know how that’s gonna help, bein’ so quick an’ all. Dames’ll think I’m a baby bird.”

Bucky poked him in the side.

“You _are _a baby bird.”__

__“Am not.”_ _

__“Are too.”_ _

__Steve kissed him then, and it was clumsy, and their lips mashed some, but it lit Bucky up from the inside. He never felt that with any girl, ever, no matter how far past kissing he’d gotten. He put his hand on Steve’s face and eased him back some, only to slot their mouths together more softly and let just the tip of his tongue out to run along the full swell of Steve’s lower lip. Steve inhaled, sharp, and Bucky’s tongue grazed the tip of his, and he whimpered. Steve pulled away and sat up, arms around his knees. Bucky’s heart threatened to thump clear out of his chest. He looked up and began counting the damp spots in Steve’s ceiling._ _

__“There now,” Bucky said, and his voice came out low and rumbly. He cleared his throat. “You’re a fine kisser. You got one up on Emmeline Masterson.”_ _

__Steve turned enough that Bucky could see him in half profile: the crooked line of his nose, broken once years ago, the sweep of his lashes._ _

__“You think so?” he asked._ _

__“Definitely,” Bucky said._ _

__He watched Steve nod, and then Steve got up and went back to his drafting table. Bucky watched him draw from his vantage on the bed—the flex of his back, the surprising breadth of his shoulders, drawn up to his ears, the way his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, the way the light caught in the fine golden hairs dusted across his arms. Bucky watched for a little while, silent, before he got up, made his goodbyes, and left._ _

__

__

__Anne of Green Gables was all right, kinda nice. Bucky thought Steve might have liked it better than he had, and Anne definitely could have done better than Gilbert Blythe, but Emmeline Masterson sighed happily whenever he was on the screen, so maybe Bucky didn’t know enough about what dames liked in a fella. He felt more and more unsure of his footing where Emmeline was concerned; wasn’t some necking the whole point of going to see a picture? Whenever he girded himself for a massive invasion of her big pokey tongue, she was engrossed in the antics of Avonlea. Whenever it seemed like she might be leaning in for some attention, he was finally caught by the plot. They were just not finding a rhythm with each other._ _

__On the walk home, she took his hand again and made eyes at him. He knew he should suggest something—milkshakes or a walk down the pier or whatever it took to get to her keep looking at him like that, but more and more she was leaving him cold. He knew he should be asking her for a third date, dreaming of his hand up her blouse or up her skirt, but the very thought of doing any of that with her was enough to give Bucky the heebie jeebies. He wondered what was wrong with him, that he couldn’t even enjoy taking the prettiest dame in Brooklyn out on the town._ _

__He could hear Steve in his head, clicking his tongue, telling him looks weren’t everything. He was right, of course. Steve had a way of being right a lot—it’s what got him into trouble most of the time, since the world didn’t exactly turn on fair play the way Steve wanted it to, and he was a stupid mook who thought he could take that kind of grand injustice into his own hands._ _

__“Whatcha thinkin’ about?” Emmeline Masterson said with a jiggle of his hand. He jumped a little and turned to look at her. She was so pretty; it made something in him ache to know that he couldn’t even begin to appreciate it._ _

__“Hm?”_ _

__“You got that thousand-yard stare goin’,” she said. “Figured you were havin’ some deep thoughts is all, and I wanted in on ’em.” She gave him a sweet smile and swung their joined hands back and forth._ _

__Bucky plastered on his best smile and said, “Just thinkin’ on you, doll,” and her grin widened. She stopped in the doorway of a closed shop and leaned in, eyes fluttering shut, mouth parting. Bucky took a deep breath and screwed his eyes shut. Maybe he could train himself to like the squirmy mollusk of her tongue lapping at the back of his throat. Maybe if he just thought of something else, like stacking crates at the retaurant, his ma’s banana nut muffins, the soft rumble of Steve’s sigh into his mouth—_ _

__There was a commotion, and then a girl’s piercing scream rent the air, and Emmeline Masterson jumped about sky-high and five feet away from him, eyes wild._ _

__“Hey!” Bucky heard a familiar voice shout. “You leave her alone!”_ _

__“Oh, Christ,” Bucky muttered._ _

__“What is it? Bucky?” Emmeline plastered herself to his side and clung to his arm. This resulted in her being dragged halfway down the street and into the alley where sure enough, Steve was getting walloped by two burly jackasses, mouthing off the whole while. The girl whose virtue he was no doubt protecting was no shrinking violet: she was smacking the lunks on their backs with her purse, hollering bloody murder, but jerks paid her about as much mind as they would an irritating mosquito._ _

__“Stand back,” Bucky told Emmeline, but just then, one of the mooks slammed his elbow backward into the girl’s chest and she collapsed into the ground like a bag of sticks. Emmeline screamed, but before Bucky could hold her back, she dashed ahead of him and knelt at the girl’s side. Bucky didn’t waste any time throwing himself into the fight, and soon his knuckles and kneecaps were aching and there was blood on the ground and one of the lugs said, “Jesus, Benny, the girl’s on the ground, we better go.”_ _

__“Yeah, you better,” Steve said, spitting a glob of blood and phlegm at them. He was swaying on his feet, scratched up and bleeding, but he put his dumb fists up and Bucky did too. “Ya lily-livered nut-scratchers.”_ _

__“Make like a tree, shit-for-brains,” Bucky said. The pair of idiots were nursing three swollen eyes between them, but they managed a glance at Emmeline helping the other girl up before deciding it was best if they scrammed._ _

__Steve pushed Bucky to the side when they were gone so he could crowd in on Emmeline Masterson and the other girl._ _

__“Are you all right?” he asked her. “I tried to stop ’em, I’m sorry I didn’t get there quicker, I’m sorry I didn’t—”_ _

__“Just got the wind knocked outta me is all,” the girl said, flashing him grateful eyes. That, Bucky thought, was how every dame should look at Steve. The pang in his chest at the sight of it was nothing—gratitude, maybe, that someone could finally see what he saw every day. “They were gonna snatch my purse, but you stopped ’em. Thanks, mister.”_ _

__“That’s Steve,” Emmeline said. “And I’m Emmeline, and that’s Bucky.”_ _

__“I’m Ruth,” the other girl said, warm eyes stuck on Steve. “Thank you, Steve.”_ _

__Steve ducked and clapped a hand to the back of his neck, which was slowly turning a dull red._ _

__“Just tryin’a help out,” he said, lifting and dropping one shoulder. “It was nothin’.”_ _

__“Yeah, that’s not what your ma’s gonna say when she catches a load of that shiner, bub,” Bucky said, stepping up to the conversation. Steve turned around and looked up at him, and Bucky hissed in sympathy for Steve’s poor split brow, his swollen and abraded lip._ _

__“It was worth it,” Steve said fervently._ _

__“Yeah,” Bucky said, slinging an arm over his shoulders. “Yeah, I know.”_ _

__“We ought to walk Ruth home, don’t you think Bucky?” Emmeline said, but Steve was the one who answered._ _

__“Of course,” he said. “No ifs, ands, or buts.” He looked up at Bucky with a question in his eyes, as if there were ever any option but to follow Steve when his chin took that determined angle. Bucky nodded and swept a hand out in front of him._ _

__“After you,” he said, and the four of them left the alley blood-spattered and empty._ _

__

__

__Back in Steve’s bathroom, Bucky dabbed Steve’s eyebrow with iodine while Steve stayed manfully stoic. Bucky knew his own expression had contorted into a mask of displeasure, but he couldn’t help it._ _

__“When you gonna learn how to stay out of trouble, huh?” he said, steadying Steve’s head with a hand on his chin. He balanced on the edge of the tub while Steve sat on the closed toilet._ _

__“Jeez, Buck, what was I supposed to do? Leave her to get mugged?”_ _

__“Get help first, for one,” Bucky retorted. _And never go out without me_ , he swallowed back. _ _

__Steve closed his eyes, and Bucky’s heart stumbled. Who knew just the sight of Steve’s dark eyelashes like a fan against his cheek could inspire more in him than any touch of Emmeline Masterson’s little fingers in his palm? He sighed and turned back to Mrs. Rogers’s medical kit for some more gauze and iodine._ _

__“So did you get a third date?” Steve said. “Being all dashing and gallant.”_ _

__“Naw,” Bucky said. “I don’t think me and Emmeline are gonna work out.”_ _

__Steve’s eyes snapped open, big and blue and earnest._ _

__“I’m sorry, Buck,” he said, but Bucky only laughed a little and shook his head._ _

__“I’m not,” he said. “Some people just don’t suit.” He steadied Steve’s chin again before pressing the gauze to the corner of his mouth. He swallowed past a lump of uncertainty, then dragged the pad of his thumb gentle over Steve’s bottom lip. “Your poor mouth,” he murmured._ _

__Steve’s breathing went heavier and his eyelids drooped to half-mast._ _

__“You really think my ma’ll notice?” he asked, soft._ _

__Bucky snorted. “Yeah,” he said. “I really do.” He couldn’t stop his thumb from tracing the full bed of Steve’s lip. The bathroom was silent, but surely, surely Steve could hear how Bucky’s heart thundered in his chest? His lips parted and then the fleshy bit of Bucky’s thumb was flush with a row of teeth, and the tip of Steve’s tongue flickered over the top for just a moment, just enough to light a fire at the base of Bucky’s spine. His breath caught. “Stevie…”_ _

__“I don’t care,” Steve whispered, voice harsh between the bathroom walls. “I don’t care if you kiss me bloody, Buck, just as long as you damn well kiss me.”_ _

__The gauze fluttered to the ground, and all Bucky could look at was Steve’s pink mouth, shining under the light, swollen from the hits it took. He cupped Steve’s face and rubbed his thumbs over his cheekbones._ _

__“You know what it makes us, wanting this?” Bucky said, low._ _

__“I don’t care,” Steve whispered. Bucky felt like something in his chest was cracking, but he leaned in and pressed his lips to Steve’s, and then all he felt was light._ _

__Steve opened up beneath him with a moan, hands convulsive in Bucky’s shirt. Bucky wrapped his arms around him and drew him in closer, their knees knocking together. Steve pushed one of Bucky’s suspenders off his shoulders, and Bucky gasped at the zing that went straight to his balls at the thought of Steve, so brave and so bold, stripping Bucky off right there. But Steve was only half on the toilet and probably about to slip right off if Bucky did anything dumb and delicious like shove one of his thighs between Steve’s, so he pulled back and stood up. Steve, rumpled and small beneath him, looked up at him with hazy eyes gone dark. Bucky’s spine felt like it was made of molten lava when he caught sight of a little bulge straining at the fabric of the lap of Steve’s slacks._ _

__“Not in the toilet, Steve,” Bucky said, and stuck out a hand to help him up. Steve licked his lips and gripped his hand—his was strong and square and calloused. Bucky hauled him up, pulled him chest to chest. He could feel Steve’s breath on his chin. Steve craned upwards to kiss him again, eager and tentative at the same time, and Bucky groaned, yanking Steve’s hips into his. Their erections ground together and Steve squeaked into his mouth, tangled his hands in his hair._ _

__Bucky jerked away and gasped from breath. Steve swayed, pursed mouth trying to follow, eyes dazed._ _

__“Come on,” Bucky said gruffly, and dragged Steve by the wrist into his bedroom._ _

__Once they were in there, though, it was Steve who pushed Bucky into the mattress, Steve who brushed aside Bucky’s other suspender, Steve who bore Bucky into the bedding and pinned him there with his negligible weight, the warmth of his skin, the soft ferocity of his kisses. Bucky was so bold as to snap Steve’s suspenders off and skim down the length of his back to palm at the little handfuls of his ass through his slacks, and Steve whimpered, squirming until his hard-on bumped up against Bucky’s and made them both gasp._ _

__Suddenly, Bucky wanted nothing more than to _see_. If he was gonna be some kinda fairy, he might as well go all the way. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, as Bucky’s old dad always said. Bucky sat up, which dislodged Steve and inspired that dumbfounded look on his face all over again. He skimmed his hands down Steve’s chest and stomach before landing on his pants buttons. He flicked his eyes up to meet Steve’s._ _

__“All right?” he said._ _

__Steve nodded in two uncoordinated jerks of his head. Bucky held his breath, but he undid Steve’s slacks and drew them down, underpants and all. Steve lifted his hips and then they were off him altogether, and Bucky’s mouth went dry at the sight of his cock, small and hard and damp, framed by bronze curls and bobbing against his stomach. His balls, drawn up tight underneath, were a tender pink barely dusted by hair. Bucky was aware, peripherally, of Steve unbuttoning his own shirt just enough to tear it over his head, and then Steve’s hands were on him, unbuttoning his shirt, too. When he got to Bucky’s pants, Bucky batted his hands away and shifted enough to push Steve into the mattress and sling a leg over him like an anchor._ _

__“Can you just—let me?” he said, and Steve went still, though his breath was quick._ _

__“What are you…”_ _

__“I don’t know,” Bucky said, but he tore his eyes from the high color of Steve’s face to look down at his sweet little dick, and he knew exactly what he wanted to do. It seemed obscene and crude and impossible, but his mouth watered and he wanted, _needed_ to get it around Steve’s cock. He swallowed the gathering saliva, bent over Steve’s lap, and sealed his mouth over the entire thing. Steve keened out a strangled sound and thumped at the mattress with both fists. Bucky reached up with one hand and shoved three fingers in his mouth to stifle him, using the other to pin his hips down while he sucked on Steve’s dick like a goddamned lollipop. The velvet pulse of Steve’s tongue against his fingers drove him to grind his own hard-on into the sheets, and it wasn’t long before Steve was scrabbling at his shoulders and pumping thick streams of come into Bucky’s mouth. It was bitter and terrible, but he didn’t know what to do other than swallow it all. He kept on sucking until Steve was soft and winced away from him. _ _

__Bucky popped up and heaved in a breath as he freed his dick from his pants. He grasped it hard and straddled Steve’s thigh as he set a punishing rhythm, head thrown back, breath heavy. Then, he felt one of Steve’s hands join his around his cock and he forced his eyes open, forced himself to look down, and Steve was _Steve_ , beautiful: more beautiful than sunrise over the river, more beautiful than Emmeline Masterson in her red dress, more beautiful than extra cash in his pocket and extra food on his ma’s table. Steve was the most beautiful goddamned thing he’d ever seen and here, now, with his dick poised to splash his elementals all over Steve’s buttermilk skin, Bucky could finally admit it._ _

__“You look so good, Buck,” Steve whispered, soft palm jerking quick over the head of Bucky’s cock. At the sound of his voice, the flicker of his tongue over the mouth Bucky had made raw with kisses, Bucky shuddered and came, shooting all over Steve’s concave stomach. He threw his head back and choked on his own breath, saw stars the color of Steve’s eyes, and shook until he collapsed, pants around his thighs, across Steve’s body._ _

__Bucky came back to himself slowly, drawn down from the stratosphere by gentle hands running up and down his back, and Steve’s mouth brushing kisses on the crown of his head._ _

__“’m I crushing you?” he said, words mashed into Steve’s skin._ _

__“I like it,” Steve said. “Just stay, all right?”_ _

__Bucky closed his eyes and shifted enough to feel like most of his weight was on the bed instead of Steve, but he was still settled into him, still had an arm slung over his chest. He pressed his ear beside one little nipple and listened to the strong beat of Steve’s heart. Something tense inside him unraveled._ _

__“Bucky?”_ _

__“Hng.”_ _

__“I’ve wanted this a long time, you know?”_ _

__Bucky had nothing to say to that. He burrowed his face into Steve’s neck and breathed in the warm sweet scent of him, overlaid with the day’s sweat, come, and just a hint of copper. He squeezed him as tight as he dared._ _

__“Stay with me?” Steve asked._ _

__“You’ll never get rid of me now, pal,” Bucky said, and closed his mouth over the pulse point in Steve’s neck. Steve shivered against him, but he petted Bucky’s hair so, so softly, and Bucky let the slow living thud of Steve’s heart against his ear lull him to sleep._ _

__

__**End** _ _

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The Very Thought of You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20776049) by [RevolutionaryJo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RevolutionaryJo/pseuds/RevolutionaryJo)




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